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The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of the Market

bloomberg.com

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Re: The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of the Market

#71

Post by Spivak »

vibrio wrote: post #55
jjaredsimpson wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also since a large number of coins are lost the 40% number understates the size of the whales. Estimates are that 20% of coins are simply lost for good.

This is interesting but my understanding of blockchain is limited so: Aren't all transactions 'encoded' in the blockchain? If so why can't the coins be found? If not, what does the blockchain "record"?

The coins are there but since the private key for the wallet that is assigned ownership of them is lost they're effectively gone.

They could in theory be 'reclaimed' with a majority of mining power but it's hard to tell if coins are lost or their owners are just idle.

Re: The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of the Market

#72

Post by crazypyro »

Is this really that surprising? To me, it just seems to be mirroring wealth inequality. 63% of total private wealth in America is owned by the 1%[1]. I'm sure the top 1,000 have a significant amount of that 63%.

[1]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-16/the-u-s-i...

Re: The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of the Market

#74

Post by bruno2223 »

Btc prices can still being manipulate by whales? (Honest question)

I know shitcoins can, because the Market Cap is low and it is easier for whales to manipulate the market.

But... This also happen with BTC now days? There are millionaires who puts all their BTC in one exchange? Jesus.. they are crazy.

Re: The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of the Market

#75

Post by isolli »

aaavl2821 wrote: post #59

Market manipulation is a big risk here. Basically "wolf of wall st" style shenanigans, or the stuff that salomon brothers did in the mortgage bond market in the 1980s. Essentially a few big investors who've cornered the market, acting in concert, can move the market essentially according to their own desire. I read yesterday that the order book for btc was $33 million (don't know what the daily volume is; could anyon…

That's why I would be worried about investing in Bitcoin futures. I could not find any information on how the settlement price will be calculated, but I assume it would be easy to manipulate the price for a short time around the settlement date.

Re: The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of the Market

#76

Post by tCfD »

empath75 wrote: post #56
sevensor wrote: post #28

It's interesting to see how this is playing out. Libertarians have long argued that government-issued fiat currency is a tool of state oppression. Now we have a real-world experiment demonstrating on a grand scale what happens when you create a currency by consensual fiat. I'd be interested to hear what libertarians think about this: Is Bitcoin truly the kind of currency libertarians have been advocating? Have I misc…

It'll be interesting to see what happens when a few people own 90% of the bitcoin and everyone else just sort of shrugs and starts using a new cryptocurrency, instead.

Committed ideological Bitcoin supporters commonly believe in a network effect race condition spiral they call 'hyperbitcoinization' which models a world where a sort of event horizon in market adoption had been crossed, and everyone on Earth is forced to use bitcoin either directly or indirectly.

In this techno-feudalist scenario, being one of the Bitcoin 1% or even 10% means the world is at your feet, and if you've maintained good opsec, nobody may even know how much of their lives are your property.

Re: The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of the Market

#77

Post by proto-n »

sevensor wrote: post #28

It's interesting to see how this is playing out. Libertarians have long argued that government-issued fiat currency is a tool of state oppression. Now we have a real-world experiment demonstrating on a grand scale what happens when you create a currency by consensual fiat. I'd be interested to hear what libertarians think about this: Is Bitcoin truly the kind of currency libertarians have been advocating? Have I misc…

There's something that must be mentioned here: there are multiple visions for what bitcoin should be. Probably with much oversimplification, but as unbiased as I can be:

One side wants bitcoin to be a decentralized store of value, untraceable, unseizable, a safe heaven for your wealth that's completely permissionless to use.

The other side wants bitcoin to be a currency for the day-to-day life that is cheap to use, a global currency to escape the (possibly shitty) fiat issued by your state and the banking system. Basically money for "the other 6 billion people" or "the unbanked" or whoever else that needs it.

The two visions don't contradict each other, however they have different priorities, and they make different technological compromises when faced with a problem (decentralized scaling).

This doesn't take away anything from your question, but one has to consider this divide when looking for answers.

Re: The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of the Market

#78

Post by VMG »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #52
lancebeet wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the dilemma. Nobody is forcing you to use bitcoin and it's still an incredibly small market in the grand scheme of things. The libertarian position is (generally) that government mandated fiat currency is a tool of state oppression. No such force exists when it comes to bitcoin, and if people are unhappy with the concentration of bitcoin in the hands of a small number of people, they are free to us…

What's the difference between a government manipulating a currency and a cabal of wealthy individuals manipulating a currency? Or is your problem mainly that businesses have to accept dollars?

Anyone who has a miner can generate bitcoin. Only the FED can create new USD.

Re: The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of the Market

#79

Post by zardo »

Klathmon wrote: post #69
sevensor wrote: post #28

It's interesting to see how this is playing out. Libertarians have long argued that government-issued fiat currency is a tool of state oppression. Now we have a real-world experiment demonstrating on a grand scale what happens when you create a currency by consensual fiat. I'd be interested to hear what libertarians think about this: Is Bitcoin truly the kind of currency libertarians have been advocating? Have I misc…

I'm no libertarian, but wouldn't the fact that you can buy bitcoins with traditional fiat currency throw a wrench in this being a valid experiment? Since anyone that received an "unfair advantage" with government-issued fiat can turn around and use it to get an unfair advantage in bitcoin as well?

So in order for libertarian society to work as desired we first have to... evenly distribute the wealth? I don't think we'll find any libertarians taking that position.

Re: The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of the Market

#80

Post by lawn »

simias wrote: post #20
marsrover wrote: post #2

I really enjoy investing in cryptocurrencies. However, I have a lot of doubt this is going to make the world a more fair or better place. It's going to create a wealth gap like has never been seen in first world countries.

It seems pretty obvious to me as well. Given huge speculation surrounding them at the moment I'm surprised we don't hear more people warning about these things. I don't think I want to live in a world where BTC replaces the USD/EUR/... Untraceable money means that corruption and tax evasion would be easier than ever. Democratic governments would be worse off in dealing with that, because unlike totaliatrian regimes t…

I don't completely disagree but I will try to at least bring up some contrary views.

> Untraceable money

Bitcoin is pseudoanonymous with it's public ledger, hardly untraceable. Look into Monero for a proper anonymous coin.

> Untraceable money means that corruption and tax evasion would be easier than ever.

A contrary point is that today corruption and tax evasion is only for the very rich, see the paradise papers for example. In a sick way this could give the common man more power and maybe make the world a little more balanced.

Also tax collection is already heavily based on social pressure and doing the right thing. It's not obvious that the threat of getting caught, compared to the social stigma, weighs more.

> Deflation means that the rich will get richer doing nothing while the poor won't be able to get a loan to bootstrap their businesses. Forget about trickle down economics, this is downright "trickle up".

I also don't like extreme deflation, but I also don't like the inflation based system we have today.

Inflation basically eats away at your savings. This is a bigger problem for everyday poor people compared to the rich as they have more investment options. Their buffer they hold in banks or in cash is smaller percentage wise, they can more easily invest in housing and they can more easily grow their capital as money breads money. The problem with rich getting richer is already present.

Without inflation loans would harder and would combat the very real problems with too much loans (housing bubble, student loan crisis, ...). It could also help to reign in fractional banking as it would get riskier/harder.

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